Spirituality at Dunbury

We define spirituality as the act of recognising and celebrating our connections, grounded in love and compassion, to ourselves, others, beauty and beyond.

At its core, spiritual development should enable all pupils and adults to grow and flourish. It should provide opportunities to stop, think and question the world, helping children to make sense of the world in which we live and to understand a little more of their place within the created order. Spiritual development is not about one specific religion, or indeed, a religious experience, as it is not the same as faith; however, some of these ideas may contribute to a pupil’s spiritual development.

At Dunbury we have mapped the progression for spirituality development across the school through four key areas: spiritual capacities, experiences, response and understanding. 

• Spirituality capacities is the recognition that all human beings are capable of spiritual growth through capacities such as self-awareness, reflection, empathy, imagination and creativity.  At Dunbury we organise progressive spiritual experiences through the school which allow children to encounter and develop their spiritual capacities.  These are organised under the key concepts of self, other, beauty and beyond (based on the work of David Hay and Rebecca Nye.) 
• Our spiritual context at Dunbury drives the planned experiences and spirituality curriculum.  Our school vision and values drive our curriculum and define our culture.   At its heart, spirituality is about love and relationships.  Our biblical underpinning “… for we are all one in Christ” Galatians 3:28 reflects this message.  Paul was reaching out to a diverse group, calling them to stop and reflect upon what united them, their love of Christ.  Through practicing spiritually and doing this, they could achieve great things through learning and working together.
• The key concepts of self, other, beauty and beyond has strong links to our school context and Christian vision of:
  • Strength in difference (self and others)– exploring our personal strength and recognising the uniqueness of ourselves creating glorious diversity.
  • Together we are one- (beauty) - looking at the wonder of our communities and world
  • Together we fly high (beyond) – thinking about our place in existence and the greater scheme of things and how this gives us the capacity to use our voice powerfully and to aspire to more.
• To support children to develop and progress with their spiritual understanding of the experiences they encounter, capacities exercised and their spiritual responses (developing an understanding of how this experience impacts on their lives and the way in which they live), we use the mechanisms of candle, windows, mirrors and doors.